Bill de Blasio and Chris Christie Are Election Victors; State of Virginia Is Election Loser

Just how predictable was yesterday’s historically uneventful election day? So predictable that your blogger, four hours before New York Mayor–elect Bill de Blasio delivered his address to supporters, foresaw (is “soothsaid” more humble?) that his victory song was going to be Lorde’s “Royals.” And lo, around 11 p.m. last night, de Blasio ascends the stage at his Park Slope celebration to . . . Lorde’s “Royals.” Does this mean that your blogger now usurps de Blasio as mayor-elect? Let the people decide, we suppose!

De Blasio’s 49-point lead (!) over his nominal challenger, Republican kitten-executioner Joe Lhota, was “the most sweeping victory in a mayor’s race since 1985, when Edward I. Koch won by 68 points, and it gave Mr. de Blasio what he said was an unmistakable mandate to pursue his liberal agenda,” The New York Timesreports. What could be more liberal than abdicating the office immediately upon entering and naming a 25-year-old blogger/indie-pop prognosticator as his successor?

Think on that while we now discuss New Jersey, where incumbent Chris Christie felled gubernatorial opponent Barbara Buono by a full 22 points. As Time.com reports: “In his victory speech, Christie said his record of bipartisanship should serve as a lesson for a divided Washington, and said a ‘dispirited America—angry, angry at their dysfunction in Washington—looks to New Jersey.’” Because . . . they have a friend in Jersey who can beat a guy up?

Not only has Christie won a second term, but he has won two years or so of rapacious media speculation about his presidential ambitions. The aforementioned Time.com, for example: